Ask IH: How do you discover problems to solve?
Maybe I'm just boring, but I find myself struggling to think of any "solve-able" problems in my life.
It might be that I need to diversify my hobbies, increase breadth of topics I'm knowledgeable in, or maybe I just need to figure out how to see ideas in life.
I'm sure there are more than a few of you who have experienced this feeling.. any great advice on to how to get out of this idealess pit?
Be warned, once you start seeing ideas - you will see them everywhere. So many possibilities.
They don't appear when you sit down to brainstorm, they appear when you are living life. Get into the habit of making notes.
They also don't show up clearly marked "I am a problem" they are the reasons people run late, have to work overtime, have to cancel plans, get an injury or endure a long wait. There is always a better way to fix the underlying problem.
If you can't find ideas then you're probably just naturally accepting of the way things are. Start to question why annoyances happen. Remember that inconveniences can be improved or eliminated completely.
Take a look at your bank statement - see what the last things you bought over $100 were. What problems were those purchases solving? Can you think of a way to do it better?
Listen when people are frustrated, make a note of what solution they are looking for.
Any task that is repeated regularly enough needs improving. Look for inefficiencies in your daily routine.
Ask friends and family that have businesses what problems they are working on right now and when they are busiest.
Mostly ideas show up in 3 categories :-
Saves Time
Earns Money
Increases Happiness
I'm sure we could have a 10 minute conversation we could pull lots of ideas together!
Don't try to force them, just try to observe!
would love to try this conversation with you!
Nice! These are really useful, practical steps that can be taken by anyone to start coming up with ideas. There is some difficulty at the start where people might be indifferent to problems that occur in their daily lives. But, as you hinted, once you start noticing little things it's easy to come up with ideas more regularly :)
I also wrote a post recently on speaking with local businesses to find problems. It's tough at first and a little scary but is a good process for discovering ideas!
Very valuable 👍
The best way is just to solve the problems you experience yourself. That moment when you think: this should be easier. Those are the best problems to solve, because you'l be scratching your own itch. You'll know what the solution should look like, and you'll be extra motivated!
Thanks Rick, part of my struggle is I don't have very good awareness of problems in my own life.
I'm sure there are problems in my day to day, but when I sit down to brainstorm, I can't seem to think of any of them.
So your problem is that you don't have a very good awareness of your problems. Let's build an app for that;-)
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I haven't tried it yet but I've heard many times that "idea muscle" is something you can train. Claudia Azula Altucher recommends to write down 10 ideas every day. It doesn't matter how bad or unrealistic they are. She wrote a book about this topic - Become An Idea Machine: Because Ideas Are The Currency Of The 21st Century.
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I had the same problem, but then I realized that it wasn't so much that I couldn't think of solvable problems - it was that my mental processes automatically assumed that somebody else must already have solved any problem that occurred to me.
So, pay close attention to your automatic thoughts. You're probably making a ton of assumptions and your "invisible scripts" are preventing you from identifying problems in your own life.
And also just because there already IS a solution does NOT mean there is no business opportunity for you...
This is interesting and I feel like I've heard of this concept of "invisible scripts" before. Is there a book/blog that goes into this?
I first read this concept on Ramit Sethi's blog - https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/the-invisible-scripts-that-guide-our-lives/ . I've since come across the concept in various forms - for example, the concept of "being present" in Buddhism is essentially the same concept.
The thesis being that most of us spend our day as walking automatons, controlled by our unconscious mind. This distorts how we perceive reality. I learned this from "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle which I highly recommend.
I'm coming around to the realization that for a lot of us (including me), it's the mindset/mental processes preventing us from doing what we want to do, and working on improving them will help clear some roadblocks in our entrepreneurial endeavors.
Thanks for the link! I read Ramit Sethi's blog extensively for a while, so no wonder the reference seemed familiar.
I was actually recommended The Power of Now and it's on my list - I guess I have to read it soon then! It's true though. It's very easy to fall into this trap of accepting certain tasks as routine and allowing your subconscious to take control.
Often it's good to remind yourself that every action has numerous consequences and paths. No matter how mundane the task, or how insignificant it seems, the choice is entirely left to you on what to make of each and every moment in life. Thanks for the reminder!
If you have a hard time coming up with ideas you can pick an already solved problem and do it differently.
One way is to look at large, monolithic applications that do many, many things. Then extract just one of those features and make an app that does nothing else (at least initially).
Often I have wanted just a small %age of what a big app provides, finding all the configuration options of the big app just way too much.
I think everyone already gave you excellent advice on how to do idea extraction and that's what's great about this community.
I have just launched a new project I am testing and the main goal is to help indie hackers like you to get a quality and targeted list of customers based on a business category and location. I hope it's useful (https://500first.carrd.co/)
I think when we all react like " fu** this is tooo much " then it is the the problem we have to solve or accept it.
Read this :-)
https://www.indiehackers.com/@sarwech/how-to-find-problems-to-solve-and-get-early-adopters-by-cold-calling-businesses-b410db7a83
My observation is that most people who have successful businesses didn't brainstorm up the idea, they stumbled into it in the course of doing something else.
For my hair salon scheduling software business, I stumbled into the idea when my wife got a job at a hair salon and I saw how terrible their software was.
For my business teaching Angular + Rails, I myself tried to build an Angular/Rails app and noticed how little good documentation there was online.
For my business teaching job search skills, I noticed that most of my Angular/Rails readers were learning Angular because they wanted to try to get a better job.
Unfortunately I'm not sure how the knowledge that successful ideas typically don't arise out of brainstorming might translate into advice about how to generate ideas. I do find it helpful to be aware of that piece of truth though.
So IMHO if you're early in your journey then the easiest way is look for where people are already spending money and ideally lots of it.
I'm not looking for that 1 in a miilion shot that will make me a billionaire but there MANY opportunities that will make you millions.
I also prefer to target small businesses (which I believe is a growing segment) and they are more willing to pay $40 a month.
So look at who is solving their problem and provide a similar solution. You don't need to be radically different. Get involved and you once you start interacting with your clients you will learn SO much. From there you can take it in all sorts of directions
Simon
Another approach might be the market-angle "what would your personal ideal customer look like?" What kind of people do you like spending time with, talking to ... what topics are of their interest? Can you find out what their spending time or money on?
Start with a specific niche, dont start with "life problems in general".
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Where would you start on Quora?
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